Posted on 02/22/2005 12:18:13 PM PST by freespirited
It is increasingly clear that two of the three members of the University of Colorado committee reviewing Ward Churchill's work to determine if he is fit to remain on the faculty have no business being on the panel.
The most compromised committee member is Todd Gleeson, dean of the college of arts and sciences. Gleeson has delivered his judgment of professor Churchill's work on several occasions over the years - most notably in 2003 when he offered the ethnic studies professor a generous retention package. At that time he praised Churchill's teaching and "outstanding contribution to scholarship." Gleeson has also approved gushing evaluations saying the ethnic studies professor "exceeds" or "far exceeds" expectations, and signed off on his appointment as department chairman.
How can Gleeson possibly now reach the contrary conclusion - that Churchill fails to meet "minimal standards of professional integrity" or demonstrates "professional incompetence" - without also indicting his previous judgment? In effect, the dean would be acknowledging that he produces wildly flattering assessments of professors without any idea of whether they are accurate.
Not incidentally, Gleeson is the same CU official who, in an email to a colleague, dismissed a complaint from a witness to Churchill's rantings during a visit to Macalester College in St. Paul last year with the quip, "The guy knows how to stir it up!!" The person complaining about Churchill's Macalester talk had described in specific, alarming terms what Churchill had said and also why CU officials should be concerned ("Is it really the educational mission of your institution to employ someone who encourages students to terrorist action?"). But Gleeson considered the query a source of amusement. And he offered the nearly identical quip about Churchill stirring things up to a News editorial writer who called him shortly after Churchill's 9/11 essay became major news.
We have no idea why Gleeson didn't recuse himself from the appointment to the Churchill review committee, since it puts him in the inappropriate position of having to review his own performance, too. Two of the most serious allegations against Churchill - that he invents history convenient to his radical themes and that he has plagiarized passages from other authors - reflect directly on the quality of his scholarship, which Gleeson finds "outstanding."
Nor is Gleeson the only member of the committee compromised by his previous assessments of Churchill. Chancellor Phil DiStefano, who heads the investigation and appointed Gleeson and law school Dean David Getches to assist him, also signed off on favorable evaluations of Churchill while DiStefano was vice chancellor. In that post, Di- Stefano can hardly be expected to boast intimate familiarity with the work of every faculty member, but Churchill's notoriety has been hard to overlook since his participation in the throng that shut down Denver's Columbus Day parade in the early 1990s. Even if DiStefano's approval of the evaluations was entirely perfunctory, it puts him in an awkward spot.
There are plenty of senior academic figures at CU who have no professional or administrative history with Churchill and who could have been asked to join Getches on the review panel. The fact that they weren't raises questions, yet again, regarding the judgment of the university leadership.
The guv should fire them.
bump for bookmark
Hey! Let them keep him. I mean, who cares? I don't. If they want to retain the man retain him. He's a joke. Everyone now knows that he's a first class phoney. Who will not take him seriously when he speaks for or against the American Indian?
This is excellent news!!! If he stays we can use his words to batter the liberals as they will be forced to defend him in the interest of "free" speech. The Left is in full self-destruct mode and I love it.
Yep keep him. Then slash higher ed budget mercilessly.
I understand the enrollment has dropped by a thousand recently???
Maybe the parents are wising up to the commie indoctrination going on at CU...
"Yep keep him. Then slash higher ed budget mercilessly."
Yes.
No problem. Churchill will just smoothly move into the pretigious Lord Quisling Seat at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
If nothing else, he's certainly tenacious.
Long after the skunk is gone the stink remains.
The drop in out-of-state applications could cost the U of C Boulder more than $15 million next year.
Think that'll get their attention? Nah. Betsie Hoffman and the Regents are the most gutless, PC-manic bunch of bumblers this side of Cornell University.
I hate this leftist institution...And I'm an alum!
Put Robert Jensen at the UofT at the top of that list!
I'm a CU alum. I just sent Gleeson an email requesting that he recuse himself for the sake of the reputation of my alma mater.
We'll see if we get a response.
It's no accident that Churchill found a home at CU Boulder.
Excellent! Keep us posted.
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